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Weej's Different Perspective

Perspectives that are Different:
Le Soldat noir de luster – delegue du commencement
Article #2 | 08/11/05

Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning, a card that strikes fear into any unsuspecting duelist’s heart, a card that surprises any top decking n00b with glee. We all know the stances when it comes to this card – people either love it, or people either hate it. We also have those who could care less and just play the game regardless, Soldier in their included.  

For almost a year now, people have been expecting this card to be banned from Advanced Format. Many were outraged when they saw it survive the April 1^st Ban List, while others shrugged and continued to use it. Indeed, April 1^st did seem like an ideal time to Ban the card – most people, even hardcore users of the card, expected it to be banned, but it somehow evaded the list once again. Will the card ever really be banned?  

This article is meant to look at Black Luster Soldier for what it is (the single most powerful Monster in the game today) and look at it from both angles. Hopefully this article will be able to extinguish the ongoing debate of this card being banned. 

First off, there’s no denying that Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning is an incredibly powerful Monster. There’s also no denying that it’s the most powerful Monster today’s format can offer. Black Luster Soldier, from here on out referred to as BLS, mine as well be a LV4 Monster. It has the stats of a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, a monster removal effect rivaling that of Tribe-Infecting Virus and Nobleman of Crossout, and a double-attacking effect that is almost on par with a card such as Mataza the Zapper or Hayabusa Knight. All with an attack powerful enough to content with pretty much any Monster in the game, including itself. It gets even sicker when it comes down to priority – as long as you bring it out properly, it’s going to be doing something before it dies. That means it’ll impact the game in two ways: A: the opponent will have to use one of their cards in response to it being summoned B: the turn player who summoned it will be able to use priority and remove something before the Soldier dies. As you can see, even being in a single chain-link can drastically alter the game.

None of these points, however, are as bad as the final one: this Monster has virtually no cost to get out. Monsters from the hand and deck come and go while fighting on the field. Then there are those monsters who are discarded through effects like Delinquent Duo and Graceful Charity. Removing a Light and Dark isn’t a summoning cost, it’s a simple prerequisite to getting BLS out. The duelist summoning BLS could make a camp fire on the damn dueling table and circle around it like an Indian doing some interpretive dance – and it’d still be easy to summon BLS. Compare summoning BLS to any Ritual or Fusion Monster in the game, and you see just how unfair this summoning requirement is. It gets even worse, though. The summoning of BLS is a Special Summon, so the turn player can even do some swarming for a final take down. However, BLS is just like any other Monster in the game. It can be taken out, manipulated, and destroyed like so. Mirror Force, Smashing Ground, and the occasional Snatch Steal can simply own the Envoy. Understanding that BLS is a monster is the first step in identifying how it impacts the state of the game. If the opposing player has some removal, they’ll be able to take it out next turn. But what if they didn’t have any removal?  

This is the main problem with BLS, when the player doesn’t have any resources with which to defeat the Envoy - that is when it truly becomes broken. One could say that it’s the opposing player’s fault that their in the situation, but who’s to say for sure? What if that opposing player had a Berserk Gorilla  and Tribe-Infecting Virus on the field with no other cards in hand, while the opponent had nothing. The player slammed the duelist, bringing them down to 200 Life Points. During the next turn, the other player top decked BLS, brought it out for no cost (as the Graveyard was chock full of Light and Dark’s in the Graveyard that collected through out the duel), and then killed that player that turn because his Life Points were low enough. That wasn’t a game of skill at all, that was luck, the worst kind of ridiculous luck there is, the luck that shows you that in some aspects, this game hasn’t changed one bit from when the Ban List first appeared – that it still can manifest situations of the “Harpie’s – Raigeki – Yata – GG” aspect. If BLS were to be banned, the final major trump card of the game would be gone, and the game could finally continue without this ridiculousness.  

So will Konami ban BLS? No, because if they cared they would have done it long ago, banning it with Chaos Emperor Dragon. They care more about money, and they know that banning an entire archetype versus banning a couple broken cards will have a more negative effect on their sales. Money surpasses all other factors when it comes to the game, and with Dark Revelation Volume 2 coming out, it’s just another reason for Konami not to ban the Soldier. Not as if I’m complaining… 

For over a year and half after Invasion of Chaos’ release, I have hated the Chaos-based Monsters (BLS, CED, DMOC), and advocated them being banned and not being used, each for their own sick little combos. BLS just because of it’s awesome power, CED because of it’s combo-ability with Yata, and DMOC because of Monster Reborn + Painful Choice = 3 DMOC. Now, I could care less if all three were banned or if all three were unbanned, because I use all three in the Advanced and Traditional Formats that I play in at my local store. Not using BLS in the Advanced Format is like playing baseball without a bat, it is simply too good not to run one if you can obtain one. For everyone who wants BLS banned, please, manage your resources better so you can take it out, and just own one yourself so that can stop complaining about it. Money > you wanting BLS banned. Konami will keep it off the list – they’ve done it for over a year now, and there’s no reason to stop now with more potential sales in the future.  

Send questions and comments to mrweej@gmail.com.